Fire station to bring rate cut

World Golf Village homeowner's insurance rates should go down; but Palencia must wait

TIFFANY PAKKALAtiffany.pakkala@staugustine.com

Published Sunday, September 23, 2007

World Golf Village area residents will be eligible for major cutbacks in their homeowners' insurance rates next month as the new Pacetti Road fire station comes online.

But residents in the Palencia area will have to keep waiting for their relief. A new fire station that was slated to be built in fiscal year 2008 about 2 miles north of the development has been stalled because of funding cuts.

Florida's recent tax-cutting mandate and an impending Constitutional amendment that would further cut the county's tax revenue has "temporarily put the project on hold," said St. Johns County Fire Rescue Spokesman Jeremy Robshaw.

Fire Rescue is waiting to see how much of its funding is cut before it sets a new completion date for the project, he said.

Both Palencia and World Golf Village are classified in the highest risk category Class 10 for insurance against fires. The classification is considered so high risk, in fact, that many insurance companies will not offer policies in a Class 10 area. Any area more than five road miles from the nearest fire station is placed in that category.

When the new fire stations come online, most residences in the World Golf Village and Palencia areas will drop to the much lower-risk Class 5. The category designates homes within five road miles of a fire station and within 1000 feet of a fire hydrant.

"People within that radius will see a pretty significant cost savings. It will make a big difference for those folks," Robshaw said.

Each insurance company uses different rate structures, so it's not possible to say exactly what the savings will be. And, while fire costs may be going down, the increase in hurricane insurance costs could offset some of the savings.

"The rates are strikingly different," said Doug Wiles, president of Herbie Wiles Insurance in St. Augustine. "People living in a Class 10 area pay two, three, even four times as much as people in a Class 5 and Class 5s are high enough."

Wiles said a handful of World Golf Village and Palencia residents worked out deals with insurance companies, getting reduced rates in anticipation of the new stations coming online. But most residents had to buy insurance from companies that charge higher premiums to offset the high risk.

Once the new fire stations open, residents who then qualify for the Class 5 rates will see the savings the next time they renew their insurance.

World Golf Village area residences will fall under Class 5 the same day World Golf Village Station No. 16 is fully staffed, which will be sometime in early October.

The station will start out with five career personnel on site 24 hours a day. It will be equipped with an advanced life-support engine, an advanced life-support rescue vehicle and HAZMAT response supplies. That includes two HAZMAT response vehicles, trailers and other equipment.

Within the next six months, the station is expected to get a 100-foot ladder truck.

Meanwhile, the site for the Pine Island Station, which will serve Palencia and residences north of the development up to the county line, will remain vacant. The site is just south of Pine Island Road off U.S. 1 North.

Wiles said the delay in building the second fire station is alarming, both from an insurance perspective and a safety perspective.

"It will be very difficult for some homeowners to maintain insurance period, particularly now, when we're in an insurance crisis," he said.

Add to that the reason for the difficulty, which is the longer response time those residences face in an emergency.

"This is about more than just a house. It could be a small child or even a family that's at risk," he said. "And it's not just traveling farther in case of a fire. It's also farther in case, for example, someone has a heart attack. We could lose lives."

County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson said the fire station is still a priority for the county, but officials have to take another look at how to fund it. She said funding cuts were so tight, it was difficult to even cover the cost of opening and staffing the World Golf Village station this year.

"What happened was that we had a plan, the (Florida) legislature inserted themselves into our plan and now we're going to come up with a new plan," she said.

Wiles said building the fire station should be a priority in St. Johns County even in a tight budget year.

"There are already folks building and living in Palencia, and I believe the county and the fire department have a responsibility to provide fire protection for those residents," he said. "Government's primary role should be to provide adequate enforcement and adequate safety."

Commissioner Stevenson said meetings have already begun in the hopes of coming up with a new funding plan, and the fire station is still at the top of the county's needs list.

"There aren't many things that are as important as a fire station," she said. "The sad thing is, (the tax cut) will make a $5 to $7 difference in folks' tax bills, but for another year, these people will be paying thousands more in insurance."